Filed under: Hybrid , Technology , Toyota , Electric Toyota may have an ace up its sleeve in the fuel economy wars, as it’s developed a new type of semiconductor that will allegedly help the company’s hybrids net a ten-percent improvement in fuel economy. The tech is still in development, although Toyota is already reporting five-percent gains during testing, six years before it plans to implement the new semiconductor in production vehicles, meaning the ten-percent improvement doesn’t seem like an untenable goal. That is, until you hear from Kimimori Hamada, the project general manager of Toyota’s electronics division. “We are aiming for great improvement in fuel economy and miniaturization,” Hamada told Automotive News . “This is a very challenging target.” The new semiconductors are made from wafers of silicon carbide, rather than just silicon. The compound is far more efficient, losing just a tenth of the energy that’s lost from a normal silicon semiconductor. That not only makes the semiconductor more efficient, but it allows Toyota to use a power control unit that’s 80 percent smaller. While the initial results are promising, silicon carbide is considerably more expensive than silicon, and once acquired, it’s more difficult to work with. “There are still enormous technical barriers,” Hamada said. New Toyota semiconductors could increase hybrid fuel efficiency by 10% originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 21 May 2014 10:15:00 EST.

Filed under: Technology , Toyota Toyota introduced a pair of brand-new engines in Japan today, that it says will eventually spawn 14 different variants by 2015. Where these two engines stand out in today’s world, is that neither mill boasts direct injection, and both are naturally aspirated. The larger of the two is a 1.3-liter, while the smaller engine, a 1.0-liter, was developed in collaboration with Daihatsu. What makes these two unique is that they both use the Atkinson cycle. Now, we aren’t going to bore you by explaining just what this is – there’s Google for that. Suffice it to say, Atkinson engines are highly efficient, but that efficiency comes by sacrificing power. That’s why they’re so popular in hybrids, which can offset the power losses. This focus on fuel efficiency extends throughout the new engines, which also benefit from tweaks like a cooled exhaust gas recirculation system and a trick intake port, while the 1.3 employs Toyota’s iE variant of variable valve timing. Both engines can be fitted with stop-start tech. According to Toyota, when fitted with stop-start the 1.3 should provide around a 15-percent bump while the 1.0-liter will increase economy around 30 percent, when they arrive on the road.